No, Spaceship Earth Won’t Roll Away During Hurricane
Orlando Weekly wants to put everyone’s mind at ease. Spaceship Earth is not going to roll away, and the Magic Kingdom’s Cinderella Castle spire has not been removed.
Ken Storey wrote on September 1:
Amazingly, one of the most persistent falsehoods about Disney’s hurricane prep involves Cinderella Castle. A joking tweet from 2017 about Disney removing the castle’s spires was picked up by multiple news outlets, including The Guardian.
"The spires of Cinderella's Castle at Disney's Magic Kingdom are being removed in preparation for Hurricane Irma, … https://t.co/cv3VsWKApl pic.twitter.com/1BsQib1pLt
— Lori Miggins (@lorimiggins) September 8, 2017
The photo was actually of the crane used to remove the holiday dream lights that cover the castle each winter. Rumors of the castle spires being detached ahead of a storm – or the castle itself being able to be lowered into a hurricane silo – date back decades. While there are occasional updates to the castle spires, neither they nor any other part of the mostly gypsum, plaster, and fiberglass castle is easily removable.
Other buildings at Walt Disney World, including the Tree of Life and Epcot’s iconic Spaceship Earth “ball,” were all built with hurricanes in mind. All significant buildings are built to withstand at least a mid- to high-level Category 3 hurricane with little to no preparation. Like the Wheel at Icon Park, with some basic preparation, the buildings at Disney can withstand even higher sustained winds.
Riding Out The Storm
Ken also hit on several other myths but laid out the usual plan of attack on property.
In past hurricanes, Disney has offered free activities in public hotel areas for guests staying on-site. These activities continue until it is no longer safe for guests, at which time the entire resort goes into a lockdown mode with all guests asked to stay in their rooms.
All services, like housekeeping and room service, are paused until the storm passes. After the storm, teams assigned to each section of the resort check for any damage and reopen areas as they are deemed safe. Cast Members are designated as “ride out teams” throughout the resort to ensure that the entire complex reopens as quickly as possible, but as previous hurricanes have shown, it can sometimes take days for services like housekeeping to fully recover.
Areas with live animals, such as Animal Kingdom and Animal Kingdom Lodge, give special attention to preparation for any major storm. Ahead of Dorian, Disney lifted pet restrictions in rooms. Normally, only a small subset of rooms allow pets.
Be sure to check out the entire article. And, now that we have those rumors under control, there’s another I’d like to tackle – about a certain frozen head…
Awww. Skip it.